


Mercury

by Novaviis



Series: Watercolour [19]
Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Case Fic, Character Death Fix, Cop Dick, Dysfunctional Family, Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Mission Fic, Mystery, Post-Endgame, Reunions, Suspense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-08
Updated: 2017-11-22
Packaged: 2019-01-10 19:22:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12306015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Novaviis/pseuds/Novaviis
Summary: Dick is plagued by a technological phantom, bringing up painful memories, and driving him to exhaustion and desperation. Is this some cruel trap and a new enemy, or something else entirely?





	1. Unring This Bell

**Author's Note:**

> Don't trust me, man.

 

There was a single moment of panic when Dick first woke up as his analog alarm clock flashed the numbers 06:20 at him. Shooting upright in bed, he scrambled to turn the nearby lamp on. Shit, he needed to be at the station in ten minutes, he was never going to hear the end of this, he'd probably be put on paperwork all day - as Dick moved, his elbow knocked into his alarm clock. The analog numbers flickered, flashing through different combinations before landing on 05:00am. Dick was left, sat there in the amber glow of his lamp, frowning down at the little black box. He reached out and smacked it lightly on the top with his fist, watching the numbers flicker again before settling on 05:01.

Letting out a long groan, Dick rubbed his hand over his face, palm grating along the scruff on his jaw. Fourth time this month his alarm clock had randomly spouted 06:20. One of these days it was actually going to give him a premature heart attack.

Still blinking to adjust to the changing light, Dick patted around blindly under his pillows to find his phone. When he finally felt his hand close around it, he rolled out of bed and dragged himself into the bathroom across the hall. His little bachelor pad in Bludhaven wasn't all that big, but it was cozy – and it had running water that didn't smell like sewage, which for Bludhaven, was a bonus.

Setting his phone down on the edge of the sink, he scrolled through his activity feed as he washed his face. Nothing too exciting, apparently. Barbara and Tim were working on a case together, got a few leads after patrol last night. Damien had shattered a crook's femur unprovoked and was benched for the week, though that was hardly surprising. Nothing from Jason, even less surprising. The only other missed message was from Kaldur'ahm about a dosier for the Team's next mission. Dick paused in his reading to shave, dragging the razor with practiced ease along his skin, before washing the shaving cream away and patting his face dry. Reaching over to his phone, he picked it up and unlocked it with the intention of responding to Kaldur.

The moment he unlocked the device it froze, the screen shorting out before going black and rebooting. Dick frowned, smacking it against his palm a few times as if that would solve anything. “You've gotta be kidding me,” he muttered under his breath. The damn thing was brand new, too.

Frustrated as he was, he knew a lost cause when he saw one. Returning to his bedroom, Dick pulled on his Police Uniform, slipping on the belts, and buttons, and badge with memorized ease. By the time he returned to the bathroom, the phone had rebooted. Dick stuffed it in his pocket as he headed out into the kitchen. Pulling a bowl down from the cupboard, Dick poured himself a bowl of Cheerios. With chocolate milk. Because he was an adult.

And sometimes adults made mistakes, like pouring chocolate milk in Cheerios.

Making a face at the bad combination, Dick muscled through and continued eating. Cradling his bowl in one hand, he leaned against the counter top and flicked on the nearby radio. Might as well listen to something while he was eating (though he had to remind himself to take care not to spill the chocolate milk on his uniform – really not the best idea he'd had).

It was already set to the station he usually listened to in the morning, a usually tolerable news station with music breaks, just to tune back into the waking world. Dick shoveled a mouthful of cheerios into his mouth as the newsroom music transitioned into the broadcast.

“ _Temperatures will cool down along the north east coast this week, with scattered thunderstorms expected in New York City, Gotham, Metropolis, Boston, and Washington DC. But, don't break out those fall coats just yet, because we still have a few days left of warm weather before that cold front sweeps in and brings Autumn along with it.”_

Dick listened idly as he ate, drinking the milk out of the bowl in lieu of his broken coffee machine (shorted out a few days ago, sparks flying and everything). A little bit dribbled down his chin, even as he quickly pulled it away and wiped as his face with a dish towel.

“ _Yesterday evening the Mayor of Gotham City held a ne- …. huh....ference with Police Commissioner James Gordon on pre-....eh.... el.... measures against gang re- ….puh..... violence and recruitment fro- ….k......city schools. New initia- ….ah.....lude a increa- ….enh....tuh......ter school activities and funding in extra curri-”_

Frowning down at the radio, Dick tapped against the top to try to get the signal to clear up. Some kind of interference was messing with the station, so far as he could tell. That, or he just needed a new radio. When static overtook the broadcast completely, Dick resorted to just switching the channel. Settling on a pop music station, he tossed his dish towel to the side and continued eating.

“ _We'll be right back with more of today's Top 20 hits after a short commercial break,”_ A burst of upbeat music cut through the apartment. _“This weekend only, come down to Sal's Hardware Dep- ...fuh.....best deals on all your ho-.... ruh.....ation needs. Up to 25% off store wide, with buy one ge- …..eeh.... cordless hammer drills!”_

Dick huffed and shut it off. Needed a new radio then. He wouldn't have bothered, after all no one listened to the radio anymore, but Bruce had always hammered it into him that battery powered radios were essential for getting information during power outages and disasters. But they were so _expensive_. He'd think about it.

Downing the last of his breakfast, Dick grabbed his phone and wallet, stuffing them into his carrier bag. As he reached across the counter for his keys, his hand briefly passed by an old framed photo of Wally, who grinned as a seventeen year old Dick jumped on his back, sitting against the tile back splash. He smiled to himself for a fraction of a moment before grabbing his keys and heading out the door. Dick locked up his apartment, tossed the keys into his bag, and began fishing through his wallet for his bus pass as he headed down the stairwell down the hall.

Once his bus pass was found and easily accessible in his back pocket, Dick took out his phone and a pair of head phones. He opened up his music and hit play just as he made it to the street level and headed out toward the bus stop. To be honest, he wasn't really listening to the song itself, just wanted some background music. Leaning against the outside of the shelter, Dick watched as the bus he was waiting for came around the corner, heading toward him through the steam of a manhole cover like some phantom. It was a pretty gloomy morning, the sky turning grey as day approached, the no sight of the sun behind a thick cloud cover.

“ _....I'm addicted to being broken. Take my breath aw-..._ fuh _.....ou know I'm bou-...._ ruh _.....oke. When I close m- ..._ eeh _....still see your ghost.”_

Dick froze. Looking down at his phone, his frowned morphed into confusion and dread as he watched his phone screen go fuzzy, the song dissolving into static. He yanked the earphone jack out. The glitching stopped. This wasn't a radio, no interfering signals...

He'd been looking down at his phone for so long, he didn't realize that the bus had stopped in front of him until the doors nearly closed. Shaking himself out of his stupor, Dick lurched forward to wave to the driver. With a muttered apology, he tapped his pass on the payment terminal and moved to find a seat at the back of the bus.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

If there was one thing Dick had learned during his short time with the police so far, it was that there was _nothing_ they dealt with that was as dangerous and terrifying as two middle aged women in a domestic disagreement.

“So, as you can see, Officer, the tree is clearly on _my_ side of the property line-”

“It's planted on my side of the fence, Helen!”

“And the branches I took the pears from are leaning over _my_ side. They were on my property.”

“I've had this tree for ten years before you moved in, the couple that lived in your house before you never once-”

Dick pinched the bridge of his nose. “Okay,” he sighed as he closed his notepad. He'd been pretending to take down statements for the past twenty minutes. “Mrs. O'Conner, Mrs. Santiago, I'm afraid there isn't much for the police to get involved in here. No laws are being broken so far as I can see. Unless you want to cut the tree down, I suggest you talk it out between yourselves.”

With a few apologies responding to their chorus of disbelief and rage, Dick retreated back to his squad car, waving to the husbands of the feuding women, who were currently sitting in lawn chairs in one the their garages, sharing a case of beer. He just barely heard one of the women shouting _“Marvin!”_ in total betrayal as he slid into the passenger seat.

“Sounds like you had fun,” his partner commented.

Dick groaned as he settled into his seat, pulling on his seat belt as the car pulled away. “Remind me to never play rock-paper-scissors with you again.”

The older woman grinned back at him, sun-aged skin crinkling at the corners of her eyes. “I'm the undefeated precinct champion,” she said with an elbow nudge to his shoulder. “Besides, I've done my time. You need the experience.”

“This isn't exactly experience I had in mind,” Dick admitted.

“Hey, you want to make Detective, right?” she jibbed. “You've gotta start at the bottom, Grayson. Even if that means working the beat.”

Dick shrugged. His partner, Officer Lewis, had been a beat cop for twenty years, as long as she'd been on the force. “I don't think there's nothing _wrong_ with being a beat cop. Just wish it involved less PTA moms about to smack down.”

Lewis snickered. “Sometimes I wish they actually did.”

“Maybe that's why their husbands took the lawn chairs.”

The two of them laughed as the car pulled out of the suburbs. Dick supposed it could be worse – he could be on traffic duty, and that was always a damn nightmare. Nothing but ruining peoples' days, and standing quietly as they screamed at you over parking meters. Dick hadn't thought being a cop would be all epic chases and drug busts. No, his nightly hobby had enough of that. But he had hoped it would be a bit less tedious. Can't have it all, he supposed. It wasn't all bad, though. He always got his coffee for free.

Dick leaned his head against the window as the car rolled over the bridge from Bludhaven and into Gotham South. As soon as they landed, the familiar streets he'd grown up in swallowed him whole. They didn't often cross from Bludhaven into the city center, but he and Lewis were picking up some case files from a precinct across the rover. They passed the walls of Gotham Academy, and then down a few blocks past Galaxy Palace Arcade, and Saltwater Shake Co. He thought he might try to convince Lewis to stop there on their way back to Bludhaven. Passing by a brief view of the bay, they finally stopped at the police station. Lewis shut the car off and slipped out. Dick followed.

“You comin' in?” Lewis asked as she rounded the car.

Dick shrugged and leaned against the car. “I'm good. Need the fresh air.”

“Fresh air?” Lewis raised her brow. “In Gotham?”

“Fresh-ish.”

“Suit yourself, Grayson,” Lewis shrugged. With a brief wave over her shoulder, she headed across the pavement and up the steps to the precinct doors.

With his hands in his pockets, Dick let his head fall back as he leaned against the passenger door of the car. The clouds lazily drifted overhead, still giving no chance for the sun to pierce through. As he dropped his head, Dick's gaze swept over the city block. There was a lot of history in these streets – a thought he remembered having when he visited Central City in June. When he'd met Rudolph West for lunch. That meeting still left a strong impression on him.

Down the street, Dick watched as a group of students clad in the familiar uniform of Gotham Academy flooded around the corner. They shook their hair out, loosened their ties, undid their shirt buttons, tied their blazers around their waists. All the while, they laughed and rough housed with one another, shushing each other when they realized a cop was watching. Dick only laughed and nodded his head, silently telling them they were good. The rough housing continued again as soon as they passed him.

As they rounded the next corner, Dick's eyes trailed from them and to the opening to one of the city's parks on the other side of the street. A monument to the Reach Invasion had been erected at the mouth of the trail leading into the park. A few wreaths and bundles of flowers had been laid at the bottom of the obelisk shaped monolith, underneath a simple brass plaque giving details of the global disaster. A man and woman in their early forties stood in front of it, the man's draped around her shoulders.

Checking the street for traffic, Dick made his way across the road and down the sidewalk toward the park. He came up a few feet back from the base of the monument, just staring at it and the assortment of flowers (some fresh, most wilting) scattered around it.

“Hard to believe it's been two years, huh?”

Dick glanced over at the couple. The man had spoken, giving what Dick could only assume was his wife's shoulder a squeeze. He wasn't exactly a licensed Detective yet, but the matching rings were a good give away. Dick nodded, offering a smile. “Yeah,” he replied. “Seems like a lifetime ago at the same time.”

“I know what you mean,” the man chuckled. “The city, even most of the world has completely rebuilt and recovered at this point. You can barely tell it ever happened.”

Dick nodded. He was right – in a sense. At the outset, you could go pretty much anywhere in the world and not find a trace of the Reach. That is, until you looked closely. If you knew a place well enough, you started to notice buildings missing, remembering their rubble lying in smoke after the disaster had passed. Monuments like these were the only physical things left to remind them.

“It's nice to see that everyone is moving on,” the woman commented with a glance up at the towering skyline. “Everyone lost someone,” she gestured to the monument. “Our niece. What about you?”

“My boyfriend,” Dick replied with no difficulty. It was always a bit of a gamble saying anything incriminating like that in public, but he rarely got any grief -especially not when he was wearing the badge.

The woman only smiled, reaching out to touch his elbow. “Well, you're a handsome young man. You'll find someone nice again.”

Why these complete strangers were getting into such deep conversation with him was a complete mystery. He supposed it might be because of the uniform, knowing that they could trust and confide in a policeman. However, it could also just be because they were looking for solidarity in their mourning. Everyone had moved on, like the woman had said, but that didn't mean they'd forgotten.

“Grayson!”

Dick looked back over his shoulder to find Officer Lewis waving to him, a stack of manila envelopes tucked under her other arm. “Sorry,” he apologized to the couple. “I've got to head out. You folks take care.” With that, he made his quick departure, heading across the street and back into the squad car. Sliding back into the passenger seat, Dick sank down against the cushions.

“Someone was in a hurry,” Lewis commented as she started the car. “Checking out the monument?”

“Yeah,” Dick nodded.

“Understood,” she said. “It has been two years, though. Not to overstep or nothin', but have you tried dating again?”

“Once,” Dick replied. “A couple months ago. It didn't really go anywhere.”

“Good for you,” Lewis nudged his shoulder. “Alright, let's see what bake sale rivalry we need to settle today,” she chuckled as she reached over to the transistor radio on the center console. They'd typically wait in the car until they heard something come up over the radio, before responding that they were taking the call and heading to the given location. As Lewis flicked the radio on, a call was already being put out.

“ _...purse snatching at gunpoint on Jackson and 85 th.”_

“ _Squad 193, Precinct 42 is on foot in the area. Responding.”_

“ _Caller says the thief was headed North,_

_white male, brown eyes, unshaved, wearing a rust coloured_

_sweatshirt and grey runners.”_

“ _Chances of catching up at this point are slim, dispatch._

_Sending Officers Lernoux and Montoya ahead to scout._

_Thoms will take the statement.”_

“ _Copy that, 193. Squad 174 broke up a fight at a_

_Bludhaven West basketball game. Requesting_

_backup to track down suspected gang members_

_that fled the scene.”_

Lewis glanced over at Dick for a nod before reaching over to pull the wire receiver off its holster. She brought the device up to her face, holding down the call button. “This is Squad Car 083. We're headed back into the burrow from Gotham South, will sweep the harbour for anyone trying to get over the bridge into the city and work our way in.”

“ _Copy that, 083. Sending photos and descriptions to your monitor now.”_

At that, Dick reached down under his seat, picking up a black carrier bag. It was a little difficult in the limited space, but he managed to pull out the bulky laptop inside and toss the back into the back seat. Setting it on his lap, he opened it and waited a minute for it to connect to their mobile hotspot. As soon as it did, the information from dispatch began popping up on the screen. He gave Lewis a thumbs up.

“Info received,” Lewis reported into the mic.

“ _In the file we've sent you is a video taken_

_from social media of the brawl. It was posted_

_about ten minutes ago, five after the fight broke out.”_

Dick opened up the file as he listened. However, the moment his finger touched the mouse pad, the screen froze. Dick frowned, dragging his finger in circles to find that the cursor wasn't moving. The images on the screen began to glitch, going fuzzy for moments and flashing on and off. Smacking the side of the laptop as if that would help anything, Dick looked to his partner with an apologetic shrug. “I'm not having a good technology day. Laptop's glitching.”

Lewis nodded. “Dispatch, we're experiencing technical issues with our computer. We'll be heading across the bridge in the mean time.”

“ _You'll be given li-....huh....dates on-.. eh....ang's moveme-..._

_el....ea surro-...puh...ing Bludhaven West High School has been_

_put on a lo-... dih...own, with suspi- kuh.... runaways being armed.”_

Lewis' brows furrowed. Turning to Dick, she silently mouthed “Do you hear that?” before turning back to the device. She tried to adjust the setting on the transistor as she spoke into the receiver. “Dispatch, we're not getting a clear signal, here. Please repeat.”

“ _Y- dih... d... signal is cut- kuh...out, 083.”_

“Dispatch?” Lewis hit a series of buttons on the transistor, looking more and more like she was just button smashing in frustration. “Dispatch, we're not – hello?”

The signal completely cut out at that point, dissolving into a loud static buzz, cut up with bursts of other frequencies. Music and voices from ten different radio stations surged through the speakers, for half seconds at a time, creating a haunting patchwork of noise. And still, that one persistent voice tore through the static in intervals. _“D..... kuh.... ih.....dih...... kuh.... Dick!”_

Dick yanked on the doorhandle and pushed it open, stepping out of the car with a feverish urgency. Because for that one second, the voice cleared, quiet as crystal beneath the noise. And Dick didn't know if it was because of monument or because he'd joined the team again or what, but – that was Wally's voice. Clear as day for that millisecond, Dick swore he heard Wally's voice, and he was probably going insane. All he knew was that the squad car was suddenly a vacuum, and he couldn't fucking breathe.

Lewis was quick to follow him out of the car, leaving the engine on as she leaned over the roof from the driver's side. “Grayson? What are you doing?”

Dick swallowed, collecting himself before he turned around to face her. “I'm going to head over to the Shake place down the street. If we're going to be doing a sweep with no info, we might as well do it with some onion rings.”

Lewis frowned. “We've got to head back to the burrow.”

“We don't even know what we're looking for,” Dick shrugged. “I'll get the food, you try to sort the transistor out.”

“Alright...” Lewis sighed as she slid back into the driver's seat. “But hurry up. And get extra sriracha mayo for mine!”

Dick gave her a mock salute, trying so damn hard to hide how shaken up he was. “You've got it.”

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

Lewis managed to get both their computer and the radio working again by the time Dick came back with their food. Heading back over into Bludhaven, they spent about two hours patrolling the streets by the harbour. Even with the live updates on their now functional computer, they didn't see a single suspect. They did stop to help an elderly man get his groceries into his house, but that was about it. Once their beat shift was over, they headed back to their own station. Dick helped Lewis sort through the files she'd been given, and spent the last several hours of his shift doing his own paper work.

Evening crept up on him. It was easy to forget sometimes that the days were getting shorter. He'd looked up from his desk just as he'd logged off his desktop computer to find that the sky had already faded from the golden rays of afternoon and into darkening indigo. He stretched, stuffing his belongings into his carrier bag. Pulling the strap over his shoulder, Dick stood and headed toward the front desk to clock out.

“Grayson,” a voice called out from behind him.

Dick turned around to find Officer O'Neal approaching him. They'd been at the police academy together, in different classes, but still knew each other well enough that they were familiar. Dick gave him a quick wave as he pushed his time card into the clock to punch out. “Hey,” he replied once O'Neal stopped next to him, leaning against the other side of the desk.

“What're you up to?” O'Neal asked.

Dick sent him an odd side glance, nodding toward the device that he was clearly currently using – one he figured they'd both be familiar with. “Just... y'know, clockin' out for the night.”

“Right,” O'Neal laughed. “Listen, I was just wondering if you wanted to grab a coffee some time this week.”

Dick bit the inside of his cheek. His chest went cold just for one heartbeat, flooding arctic ice through his veins. He swallowed down the burning in his head. Glancing over his shoulder, he found his partner watching him, giving him an encouraging nod. Finally he looked back to O'Neal. “Uh- yeah, sure,” he nodded.

O'Neal grinned. “Awesome. Friday morning at the place across the street?”

“Sounds good.” With that O'Neal headed back to his desk. Dick stood there at the desk for a long moment, until the secretary cleared her throat and brought him back to the present. Shooting her a sheepish smile, he put his time card back into its slot. The moment his hand moved past the lamp on the secretary's desk, the light bulb flickered and died. The secretary scowled at the lamp, fiddling with the switch before giving up. By the time she'd turned back, Dick had already gone and headed out onto the street.

Stepping from the warmth of the station and out into the city night, a brisk wind tricked through the streets. Dick zipped up his jacket and stood to the side of the door at the top of the steps, staying out of the way as he checked his phone. The ever-so-trusty transit app claimed that he'd missed the bus, and that another wouldn't be coming for another half hour. Stuffing his phone into his bag, Dick began walking. Whether that information was true or not, he didn't feel like waiting. He'd been tense, skittish ever since the radio incident that afternoon. Maybe a quiet walk home would clear his head. He didn't bother taking his phone out for music.

He'd go home, maybe stop by the sharawma place on the corner, and then get suited up for a quick patrol. He was off tomorrow, could work out his frustrations on a few burglars and drug dealers, try to meet up with Babs, and then sleep in. The tech issues he'd been having were a coincidence. Or maybe it was a solar flare, or something. It had him on edge, and he was letting that get to his head. That was it.

The walk from the station to his apartment wasn't short by any means. By about forty minutes in, he'd made to Vanaver Heights, the little neighbourhood sitting between the station and the next city block, where his apartment was. The streets were lined with old Victorian houses, all crammed together on the narrow roads. Round streetlights lined the sidewalks on both sides of the street, throwing out halos of florescent light. The Bludhaven skyline loomed around the neighborhood on all sides, closing it in to the point that it was difficult to find where the they blended together.

Hands stuffed in his pockets as he walked, Dick didn't notice when the first streetlight flickered out behind him. The street was fast asleep, sitting in an isolated pocket in the middle of the city. He'd finally started to relax again, breathing in the cool night air.

Then the streetlight above him burned out. Dick stopped, looking up at it in silence for a moment. He didn't know what he was waiting for, but nothing happened. He just stood there in a cone of darkness between spots of light. Keeping a lingering gaze on the light, Dick continued to walk.

A streetlight adjacent to him on the other side of the street shut off as soon as he moved again. Dick could have sworn he heard shattering glass. That coincidence theory was starting to drip down the sewer drains. Tensing his shoulders, Dick picked up his pace, walking faster as one hand slipped into his carrier bag. Sewed into the lining was a pocket lined with lead covered fabric that held his escrima sticks. He kept his hand on the weapons as he made his way.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught another streetlight burn out – only this time it seemed to grow brighter until the bulb inside couldn't take it. The shatter of glass was louder now. Dick walked faster. Every light he passed under, followed by its counterpart across the street began to flare and the burst, flare and burst, flare and burst. The flares became corporeal light, shooting in a zigzag pattern down the street, crackling with electricity. Dick ran.

Streams of light burst between each light until finally, it shot ahead of Dick just as he made it to the edge of the neighborhood, where the back of an office building cut the road off and forced a sharp left turned. Dick continued ahead, darting into a wide and open alley at the end of the street, closed off by a house on one side and a brick wall on the other. The electricity shot into the flood lights, the older streetlamps, any source it could reach until it was circling around him.

Dick wiped out his escrima sticks and slipped into a fighting stance, keeping his eyes on the light as it spiraled overhead. It spun, faster and faster, sparks flying off in every direction. Dick waited for an attack, for something to fight and make sense of all this. He didn't know what he was facing, what it expect. Gritting his teeth, he waited with baited breath.

For just a second – a flash of a silhouette in the light, the light itself bursting for just that _nanosecond_ with yellow and red. And then it stopped. Every single light source around him, down the street, in what had to be a 50 meter radius, exploded all at once, Dick hit the ground, arms covering his head from the falling glass. Just like that, the street was silent again. When Dick looked up, glass dust was shimmering in the air, falling down like snow. He stood, shaking the shards off his body as he looked around. Like nothing had ever happened. Complete stillness and silence.

Dick took in a slow breath. He swallowed, finding his mouth dry and his throat burning from his sprint. Slowly, he put his escrima sticks back in his bag, flexing his empty hands at his sides. “Alright...” he spoke to the open air. “You've got my attention.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I mean, was I too subtle? Think it might've been too sublte. 
> 
> As always, please leave a comment below to let me know how you liked it. This'll be the second multi-chapter fic for Watercolour, and though it won't be nearly as long as Fireworks In July, I'm hoping it'll make it's own place in the series. 
> 
> Also, just found out a girl in one of my seminars reads these. It's wild. Wassup Emily.


	2. Unsound This Alarm

 

 

“It wasn't until after Miss Martian managed to wrestle control away from Circe over a few of the villagers that we realized it was a diversion. I-”

“Red Robin managed to piece together that Circe was after a magical artifact currently in the archives of the local museum. It wasn't a very big village, barely a town, so there was _no_ reason for her to try enslaving the population unless it was for a distraction. That's what you said, right?”

Tim sighed, shoulders slumping as he looked over to his yellow and crimson clad teammate. “Well, that's what I was _going_ to say. But basically, yeah. We managed to take down Circe, but the artifact was carried off before we could take it.”

Dick frowned as he listened to the report, his gaze flickering between the young team and the footage currently being broadcast over the holographic screen. “By who?” he asked as he scrolled further into the video. Jaime, Tim, Bart, and Cassie were recently returned from a mission to coastal Turkey, following a lead on Circe reportedly enslaving the entire population of a small village. M'gann had been assigned as well, but she stayed behind from the debriefing to make repairs on the Bioship. Senior member privilege, the younger team members had grumbled.

“Amazons,” Cassie chimed in just as the legion of warrior women swept onto the scene. “I managed to catch up with them before we left. They're taking it back to Themyscira. Looked like a spear or something like that. Maybe a sceptre. To be honest, I barely got a good look at it.”

“Well,” Nightwing sighed. “At least we know it's in good hands. The Amazons will keep it safe.”

“Yeah, sure,” Cassie rolled her eyes. Crossing her arms, she cocked her hip to the side. “Like they kept it safe the first time they let it fall to the mortal world? Let's face it, the Amazons are _incredible_ but the aren't infallible. I keep trying to convince Queen Hippolyta to install some _basic_ security and surveillance in the weapons keep whenever I visit with Diana and Donna. Every time, she says the same thing.”

Bart tilted his head. “No?”

“'Do not directly address me',”Cassie corrected him with a shrug. “Diana says it means she likes me.”

“In any case,” Dick interrupted, “it looks like you guys handled it well. Good work. Damage report?”

“Minimal,” Tim replied. “For once. When it got to fighting Circe, we lured her to a demolition site – or construction, couldn't tell,” he shrugged off Dick's glare. “The only other damage was Wonder Girl getting tossed at the Bioship. Took out the camera. Miss M's in the bay right now fixing it up. Still, we lost footage for about a fourth of the mission.”

“Human canon ball, that's me,” Cassie grinned.

“No big deal, this should be enough for documentation,” Dick said as he turned back to the screen. They could at least review what they had, the rest would be recorded in a file the old fashioned way. Scrolling back through the footage, Dick scanned for anything he wanted to comment on pertaining to the team's performance.

Watching as a golden blur raced toward Circe from the advantage of the Bioship, Dick's expression slowly began to sour. He could almost see the movement of Bart's limbs through the streak of colour. Dick paused the image, rewound the footage, and slowed down, typing an algorithm into the holocomputer to account of Bart's speed. What he ended up with was several frames, through out of focus and grainy, of Bart as he ran.

Dick turned to the speedster. “Are you feeling okay, Kid?”

Bart perked up at the sound of his name, his attention obviously having drifted elsewhere. “Yeah, of course, feeling great, dandy even. Why ask, boss?”

Dick momentarily turned back to the holograph, opening up a separate window next to the frames he'd made. Running the footage at regular speed, a series of numbers flashed over the screen before settling on an average speed. “You're way below your normal speed,” Dick commented. “And you look like you're struggling a bit here. In fact, you're _disconcertingly_ below your average.”

Bart grimaced, pulling back the hood of his mask as he ran his fingers through his hair. “Oh- yeah, that. Been happening a lot lately, actually. Don't feel any different, though. Same thing's been happening to Barry. Something to do with the Speed Force.”

“The _what_?” Tim frowned.

“Speed Force,” Bart repeated, blinking as if it were the most common knowledge on Earth. “S'what Barry calls the energy field that gives us our speed. We think it's got something to do with why we're slowing down. Didn't think it was that obvious. Some kind of disturbance, I guess.”

Dick nodded, turning back to the screen to clear the holographs away. “Keep an eye on it, then. Let me know if you or Barry figure out what's- Blue, _why_ are you laughing?”

“Because,” Jaime snickered, the blue armour falling away from his face and folding into his back. “Dude. You sense a _disturbance in the force_.”

Bart blinked. “Don't get it.”

“What, seriously?” Cassie clapped a hand on the speedster's shoulder. “You've _never_ watched Star Wars?”

“Uh, future boy, remember?” Bart rolled his eyes. “Didn't get much of a chance to watch this TV show or whatever with the end of the world and all.”

“First of all,” Tim stepped in, “Star Wars is a movie.”

Bart frowned. “Thought it was the one with the blue guy with pointy ears.”

“That's Star Trek.”

“Same thing.”

“Second,” Tim laughed, “no excuses. I know what we're doing tonight.”

Dick cleared his throat at this point. The team instantly looked to him, 'kids with hand caught in cookie jar' written all over each of their expressions. After milking that silence for a few moments, Dick only laughed and waved the off. “Dismissed. Have fun.”

“You can join if you want, Dick,” Tim offered as the rest of the team began to file toward the recreational room.

“Go ahead,” Dick shook his head. “Just make sure you record Bart's reactions to the plot twists.”

Tim frowned. “You sure? You've been,” he searched for the right words, “looking a little rough lately. Maybe it would be good to unwind a little.”

“With my luck, I'd probably break the TV,” Dick insisted. The context was lost on Tim, but he seemed to patch together a different explanation on his own. “I'm sure,” Dick continued. “I've got some work to do. Now go catch up to them before they convince Bart to start with the prequels first.”

That seemed like motivation enough to send Tim off after his team mates. Dick smiled softly to himself as he watched them disappear around the corner. Cassie's last shout of “Han shot first!” was all he heard before the quiet whir of a door sliding shut behind them. Then silence. Left alone in the ambient quiet of the Watchtower, Dick slipped his mask off with an exhausted sigh, pausing a moment to pinch the bridge of his nose. He took in a deep breath, let it out, and let the expulsion of air drag his shoulders down.

Tim had been right. The others couldn't tell, because while Bart had let his identity out of the bag years ago, they rarely saw him out of uniform as Nightwing. They did at times, of course, but at least not lately. And Dick had been looking a little rough lately. A lot rough. Hadn't slept in days rough.

Walking toward the massive windows stretching up stories high to the ceiling, Dick stood and looked down at the Earth as it turned pleasantly on its white capped poles. A blue glass marble he could hold in the palm of his hand, suspended in starry nothingness. That was the thing about the Watchtower. About space. Dick looked down, and saw past the Earth. He saw the inky black nothingness it was suspended in, going on and on and on and on below him. His gut told him that if he stepped off, he would fall. He would fall past the earth and keep falling into the void forever.

His instincts could never shake off the imprint of gravity.

A muffled yelp and a high pitched curse caught Dick's attention. Walking away from the windows, Dick made his way down the hall and into the hangar, where the League kept their various spacecraft, alien or otherwise. Down at the fall end, he watched as M'gann picked herself off the ground and dusted off her black tights. She seemed fine, at least. Fine enough that it could be funny. Despite himself, Dick laughed as he jogged over to help her. “Take an unexpected trip?”

M'gann pouted at him as she gestured to the weapon beside her, still rocking back and forth from the evident encounter. “ _Who_ just leaves an entire canon lying around on the ground. A girl can't walk backwards two steps without falling over anything.”

“You can fly,” Dick reminded her.

“Even my powers need a break sometimes. Can't enjoy a bit of gravity?” M'gann teased. A closer look at her friend had her expression pulling downward. “Are you feeling alright, Dick?”

Dick only nodded, quickly deflecting the question as he looked up at the bioship. “Got her fixed up?”

M'gann didn't seem to appreciate her question getting shoved to the side, but knew when not to push back. “Yes,” she sighed. “Thankfully, the only damage was to her eyes- er, her cameras. Aside from a few scratches, but those she can heal on her own with a bit of rest.” M'gann waved her hand, eyes flashing green for a moment. The bioship morphed, folding in on itself until it had shrunk down to an egg shape.

Dick reached out, running his hand over the smooth surface of the living ship. “Glad to hear that,” he murmured. He swiped this thumb over the glossy surface, half convinced he could feel it breath beneath his fingertips. “Hey, M'gann...”

“Hm?” she hummed over her shoulder as she turned to telekineticaly lift the canon aside.

“How long does the footage from the bioship's memory stay archived? I mean, is there a time limit to how long it lasts?”

“No,” M'gann answered as she sent the canon off toward a scrap pile where it belonged. “All of her memory gets uploaded into the League's server. All the way back to when I first came to earth. Not every second of every day of course, eight years is a lot of data to sort through, but it all gets filtered through her, kind of like the cloud.” It was only after her rambling that she faced him again. “Why do you ask?”

“No reason,” Dick waved her off. “Just curious. Thanks.”

It was hours later, when the Watchtower was empty and quiet, that Dick put that curiosity to use. The Star Wars binge had been put on hold after a movie and a half, to be picked up immediately in the morning when curfews had been satisfied. M'gann had gone home, the main lights of the base dimmed to a soft florescent glow, and orbit had taken the Watchtower to the dark side of the Earth. Through the total darkness, veins of golden light trickled out of metropolis after metropolis dotted like stars over the Earth's surface. Dick found himself at the window again, watching the world sleep with a knot of anxiety in his throat.

He knew that if he did this, there was no undoing it. If he allowed himself to go down this path, he could not go back. He had to deal with the pain, the heartbreak, the consequences, all of it. Turning away from the window, Dick walked out of the center of the tower, winding down a corridor until he made it to a small, dark room. It wasn't unlike the Batcave – if only in the fact that it was dark, and the screen of a massive computer monitor cast the room in an indigo light, feeble for illuminating anything. It was the main hub of the League's servers, and the direct link he needed. Dick lowered himself into the seat, verified his identity, and was instantly allowed access to some of the most secure information on Earth.

He opened up the link to the Bioship's archives, and typed in a date that alone made the knot in his throat tighten.

_June 20 th, 2016. _

It was a large file. That much was to be expected. The Reach Invasion had been a pivotal battle, with worldwide chaos and destruction, and for him, devastation. Knowing that over two years had passed since then was surreal. Dick shook the thought away and narrowed his search to a specific time.

A video window popped up.

Dick watched, through the eyes of the Bioship, as it landed on a vast snowy plane. A vortex of energy sparking out of control spun up through the stratosphere, blurs of white, yellow, and red spun in the opposite direction. Dick watched as his own back sprinted out from the ship, stumbling as his feet hit the snow. His hair had been shorter then, and – shit, he looked so much _smaller_. Dick knew he had filled out, and the reality was likely that the change wasn't as dramatic as he thought, but there was no doubt that the nineteen year old in the video was just a tad thinner than the young man watching.

|The rest of the team, everyone who'd been there that day, filled out after him. They weren't what he wanted to see. Cropping the footage on the distant vortex, Dick zoomed in on the base. He slowed the footage down. He accounted for speed and interference. He spliced the video frame by frame, the same he'd done to Bart, until he was left with even a fraction of the speedsters in their own time.

The figures were blurry, but they were there. Bart, Barry, and – Wally. He could just _barely_ see their faces, and Dick felt the glands nestled under his jaw sour. He swallowed. Dick continued to click through the frames. Barry looked at Wally, then to Bart, seeming to open his mouth – saying something to him. They were running at different speeds, and so it was difficult to adjust the footage to them all, but from what Dick could see, there were bolts of energy lashing out and attacking Wally. Wally stumbled. Dick swallowed through his contracting throat.

Painful as it was to watch, Dick reminded himself to stay professional. To remain emotionally distant. This was all in the past, it was long over, and getting worked up wasn't going to help him build his case. He continued. Dick watched as the speedster trio circled the chrysalis, speaking between one another, Barry's hand reaching out to Wally until he finally disappeared.

That was the thing though. Wally just – disappeared. Like Barry had said that day when breaking the devastating news. He wasn't disintegrated, wasn't torn to shreds or vaporized, as horrifying as those images were. What caught Dick's attention was the fact that Wally seemed to _flicker_. His image flashed between translucency and opacity, before finally fading from view.

This was the point of no return, Dick realized. He could shut the computer off and walk away, try to forget the images over a few beers with some friends. Or, he could let that single inkling of curiosity take seed in his mind and grow until it dug its poisonous roots into his brain and tore him apart.

Dick zoomed in, and suddenly none of that mattered. His mind went numb. He made the mistake of zooming in on Wally's face as the frames passed by in slow succession. Dick, clearer than he thought possible, could see everything. Every expression flickering over his face, the agony, the desperation –

Wally was _scared_.

Dick's stomach lurched. Roughly pushing away from the desk, he slapped his hand over his mouth and scrambled out of the room, across the hall to the bathroom. He only barely made it to the toilet before he belched out the contents of his stomach, bursting and dripping through the fingers of his glove as he crashed to his knees in front of the bowl. Dick wretched, shivering, clinging to the porcelain until he'd coughed up the last of the bile. He was left staring down at his own reflection on the rippling surface of the soiled water.

“Dick?”

The voice in the doorway sent a barb of panic through Dick's chest. Tim leaned in the threshold, expression morphed between concern and horror. The blue light of the computer monitor from the next room glowed in accents lining his face. Tim was fiddling with something in the pocket of his hoodie, something small with a chain that rattled like a dull bell. Dick quickly flushed, taking a moment to breathe before ripping off his dirtied glove and rising to his unsteady feet.

“Thought you went home,” Dick grunted as he stumbled over to the sink. With his now bare and clean hand, he turned on the faucet and cupped his hand in the water, sipping to wash his mouth out.

Dick didn't need to see Tim's face to know that his brows were pulled in a tight frown. “I was waiting for you to finish up,” he replied slowly. “Dick... are you oka-”

Dick shut the faucet off. “Let's go.”

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

Dick stood in a snow globe. The world beyond his little sphere of consciousness was distorted, like frosted glass. In the uncertain distance, he could see the hazy silhouettes of snow capped mountains and sleet rock cliffs. Where he stood, there was only an icy plane, snow drifting down from clouds he couldn't see. He knew this place – not just the Arctic, but this place, the endless horizon of white nothingness that years ago had taken everything from him. And just like back then, Dick walked aimlessly, searching for something he knew was far beyond his reach.

A surge of light burst from behind him. Dick spun around, slipping to ground on the ice, heart stuttering to a stop. A vortex of light and energy swirled violently above him. Dick scrambled back, choking down his fear. A figure appeared from within the vortex, struggling to break free.

Wally – in a torn up Kid Flash uniform – tried to reach out to him; one arm outstretched, one behind him as if it were behind held back, hand desperate to latch onto something. The lower half of his body was entirely engulfed in swirling, volatile energy as he leaned out. Almost like he was trying to claw himself free. Dick watched in horror, knowing he couldn't help him – his body was frozen, and though his mind screamed itself raw to move, he knew he _couldn't_.

Wally opened his mouth. All that came out was a static roar. The snow globe shattered.

Shooting up in bed, Dick's muscles seized as he fought to catch his breath. Sweat glistened on his skin, soaking into the roots of his hair. Grabbing fistfuls of cotton sheets, Dick struggled to calm down, grounding himself in the feel of soft cloth against the pads of his fingers. Static still rang in his ears. Gulping down throatfuls of air, he finally began to relax.

His eyes, inevitably, drifted to his bedside clock. 6:20am. Without even bothering to panic this time, Dick reached out to hit the top with a little more force than necessary. The numbers flickered. 2:48am. So, only two hours since he'd managed to stop laying awake in bed staring at the ceiling.

He didn't even try going back to sleep. With a sigh that reverberated like a cello in his bones, Dick scrubbed his hand down his face and slipped out of bed. He padded across his apartment in complete darkness, dragging himself into the kitchen. Taking a tall glass out of his cupboard, he held it under the tap and poured himself a glass of frigid cold water. Downed it in about thirty seconds. Still wasn't enough to calm his racing heart. So, plan B. He filled a kettle and set it on its base, flicking the little switch at the bottom. A soft blue LED glowed from the kettle as it turned on, the only visible light in the apartment. He'd never really been a tea person until Barbara got him into it. She said it was good for the soul, or some shit like that.

With the soft hiss of the kettle going in the background, Dick crossed from the kitchen and into his living room, to the large windows overlooking Bludhaven. He pinched the latch beneath one of the windows and pushed the glass up halfway. An instant gust of fresh air rolled into the stale apartment. Dick closed his eyes, pressing his forehead against the cool glass. He inhaled, opened mouthed, lungs quivering, and exhaled slowly.  
  
Dick hadn't slept properly in two weeks. The few precious times he hadn't succumbed to insomnia for a restless eight hours, he'd been plagued by terrors like that one, which only lead to more dread every time he tried to sleep, fear of closing his eyes and seeing his dead boyfriend reaching out to him from some nightmarish hellscape – it was a mess. He was a mess.

Still, the static roared in his ears. It was all he could fucking _hear_ apart from his own heart beat drumming a heavy bass in his chest with every erratic pulse. Dick was beyond frustrated. He was _manic_ , furious that he'd done this to himself by looking at that footage, and enraged that it was all for nothing.

He'd gone and opened old wounds, and now they were infected.

Dick gritted his teeth, squeezed his eyes shut, did everything he could to keep from falling apart until finally, he burst. With a guttural shout, Dick slammed his fist against the window, his anger begging for some kind of release. Well, he got it. The moment his fist hit the glass, he had almost expected and partly dreaded for it to crack. That wasn't the case.

No. The moment his fist hit the glass, the power in his apartment shut off. With no other fanfare, the electricity shut off and left him in total darkness. Like a ripple, the floors above and below his unit lost power, the outage seeping down, out of the building entirely and down the whole block. Buildings, houses, streetlights, everything within three blocks of his apartment lost power.

Dick retracted his hand from the glass and stumbled away from the window. Suddenly, the darkness below him too closely resembled the view beneath the watchtower, the endless void that threatened to swallow him whole.

In the aftermath, there was complete silence. Until, behind him, the soft click of the kettle turning on. The apartment remained in complete, powerless darkness. The kettle began a rolling boil.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

As the lights of the Cave slowly flickered on, illuminating the massive caverns in stalactite shadows, the last thing Bruce expected was to find a figure sitting hunched over on the computer chair. The three vigilantes climbing out of the batmobile behind him were instantly on guard, feet siding into fighting stances in preparation for an attack.

Damien snarled. “Who are you? Show yourself!” he demanded.

“Stop,” Bruce commanded before his son could attack. Right as the three of them were in their instinct to be prepared, Bruce held out a hand to stop them. He stepped forward, pulling the cowl of his head.

“Dick,” he called out to his ward, voice stern and commanding thought the undercurrent of concern were present.

Tim, Damien, and Barbara pulled of their masks, joining their mentor in staring in shock at Dick. A late night visit to the Cave was hardly out of the ordinary. Most nights, Dick was coming back from patrol with them, but he'd been distancing himself from them the past two weeks. Rather than Dick's unannounced presence, it was the state he was in that shook his family. Dick wasn't in his Nightwing uniform, but wearing sweatpants and a night shirt, an old hoodie pulled on over top. His posture betrayed his exhaustion, his eyes dark and skin pale.

Dick looked up at them, taking in a trembling breath. “I'm...” he murmured, “I'm not okay.”

The vague admission put Bruce on edge. “Dick. What's happening.”

Carding his hand back through his hair, Dick sat up, slumping against the back of the chair. “I haven't slept in days. Can't eat. I can barely _breathe_ , I just-” he broke off, swallowing hard. “I think... someone's using Wally's voice to get to me. Using _him_.” Dick went on to explain the events that had been plaguing him for God only knew how long now, everything from the radio interference, to the electricity surges, to the nightmares. He knew that he should have come to his family earlier, knew that they would have supported and helped him, but... acknowledging that this was something real, and something he couldn't handle, took a lot.

By the end of the explanation, Bruce's mouth was set in a hard line. He walked forward, settling a heavy hand on his eldest son's shoulder. “We will figure this out,” he vowed. “For now, why don't you go upstairs, have Alfred make you something to eat. You can sleep here for now. Maybe a change of scenery will help.”

Though reluctant, Dick agreed, ushered upstairs by an insistent Barbara on his arm. The two heroes disappeared into the elevator, lights glowing up the shaft as it lifted into the manor. Damien scoffed under his breath as soon as they were gone, but said nothing else. The silence was oppressive.

Finally, Tim cleared his throat. “Bruce,” he half whispered. Turning to his mentor, he slipped a memory stick out from a pocket on his belt. “There's something I think you should see.”

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

Dick leaned against the laboratory table, arms crossed and fingers tapping against his bicep. He wasn't bored, persay. Just anxious. Across the room, Barry sighed and pushed himself away from the large computer screen, pinching the bridge of his nose as he leaned back in the rolling chair. The combination of frustration and his Flash suit was almost comical, but given the situation, Dick wasn't laughing.

“Nothing?” Dick piped up as he crossed the room.

“Nada,” Barry replied. “Another dead end.”

It hadn't been thirty six hours since Dick had turned up in complete defeat in the Bat Cave to beg for help. He now found himself standing on the laboratory floor at S.T.A.R, showered, fed, rested, and feeling slightly more human than he had in weeks. His overnight stay at Wayne Manor had stretched into a few days. He was pretty sure that first night Alfred had slipped a sedative into his soup, but it'd been the best sleep he'd gotten since all of this started. It was a much needed break from the seclusion and quiet suffering of his bachelor apartment.

S.T.A.R. Labs was a well known landmark in Gotham. A pristine building, modern architecture, nestled close enough to the downtown core to be accessible and far enough away to allow to privacy. It was heavily guarded, but not imposing. All in all, it was just another building in Gotham's skyline, a place that citizens drove by every day without a second thought. The laboratory was famous for its multiple breakthroughs in countless fields of research, but it wasn't anything particularly grand. No one passing on the street, or even through the halls of the upper levels would have guessed that several of the most high profile heroes in the world were sitting in the basement, groaning like school children frustrated over a math problem.

“We've been at this for hours,” Dick sighed as he placed a hand on Barry's shoulder. “Maybe we oughtta take a break.”

“ I hear that,” Tim said as he pushed back from his own computer with a yawn and a long stretch. “I'm gonna take a lap around the other labs, see if they've got anything exciting. Bart, you wanna come with?” he called to his friend on the other side of the room.

Bart paused in his tinkering, looking up from his place on the floor next to a large generator. “I'm good, amigo.”

Sending Tim a silent nod in thanks as the younger hero left, Dick left Barry's side to check out what Tim had been working on. Laptop was locked – damn. Honestly, it probably would have taken Dick about thirty seconds to hack his way in if he wanted, but it was Tim's personal computer, and he did have some boundaries. He did find it a little weird that he'd locked it before leaving, though – they were all working on the same problem.

Bruce crossed the room, his immense presence drawing attention to his every movement. He stood behind Barry's chair, eyes scanning the screen beneath his cowl. “Bring up the footage, again.”

Apparently the notion of a “break” was lost on bruce. Regardless, Barry nodded, typing a few commands into the keyboard. Three windows came up. One played footage from various CTV cameras on a suburban Bludhaven street. Dick watched as his own distant figure raced down the street as every lamp in his path grew brighter until it burst. In the second window, a spectrogram graphed the sound readings and converted them into a translation of the energy that was now circling around Dick in the footage. The third window ran through several algorithms, numbers and formulas flying up the screen until large red text flashed “Incompatible”.

“That,” Barry gestured in exasperation at the third window, “is my dead end. I just can't find any correlation between the energy spikes and anything that could _possibly_ be causing radio interference.”

“Understandable, at least,” Bart piped up, suddenly appearing at Dick's side. “Nightwing's the only one who's experienced it, so far as we know.”

“Yeah, but it wasn't just over radio,” Dick pressed his knuckles to the back of his neck and tilted his head until he felt a light crack. “It was my phone, my computer – just about every electronic I touch glitches out or short circuits completely.”

“But without a specific example of that energy, we can't compare it to whatever is after you,” Barry explained.

Bruce, who had been silently watching the screen replay its endless loop during the conversation, turned briskly on his heel and walked away. Dick frowned beneath his mask, watching as his mentor took a usb from its port in Tim's laptop and tossed it to Barry. Barry caught it by the small chain on its end.

“Enter the data on this into your algorithm,” Bruce grunted.

Barry's only response was a moment of skepticism and hesitance, but he nonetheless complied. Plugging the usb into its port on his hard drive, the allowed the data on the drive to upload and transferred it into the program he was running. The flashing red text in the third window disappeared, and the formulas successfully continued to scroll down the screen. Barry's eyes widened beneath his cowl. He leaned forward out of his chair, reading the rolling numbers at incredible speed.

“This is almost identical to the signature given off from the footage,” Barry commented in awe. “But these frequencies scattered through it, they're-”

“They're us,” Bart sped to the computer, half pushing himself in front of his grandfather to get a closer look at the screen, just short of actually climbing onto the desk. “That's me,” he pointed at a set of numbers as they scrolled by, “that's you, Gramps, and that's- dunno, but it's something.”

Dick crossed his arms, turning his attention to Bruce. “Where did you get this data?”

Bruce considered his words. “I had Tim splice it from the archives,” he said as he approached the heroes huddled around the computer screen. He laid a hand on Dick's shoulder. “I didn't want to say anything until I was certain. Whatever has been targeting you is taking advantage of the same energy signatures as the Flashes.”

Barry stood up straight, facing his own teammate and fellow Leaguer. “This has something to do with the Speed Force, whatever's been slowing Bart and I.”

“I think that's safe to confirm at this point,” Bruce nodded. “Following that, the only way to be certain that it's the same force affecting you two is-”

“Bringing it on out! We recreate the same signature, get the numbers, and boom, we can track down whoever's screwing us up,” Bart grinned.

Bruce didn't find his interruption half as amusing as Dick did. Clearing his throat, he turned from the young speedster and focused his attention on the generator Bart had been tinkering with earlier. “What were you working on, Kid Flash?”

“What, that?” Bart zipped over to the generator he'd been tinkering. “Goes to that beaut over there,” he said as he pointed to a larger device on the other side of the Lab, a machine with a large ring of metal sitting on the top. “It's like an 'Energy Finder'. I figured we could use to to lock onto the location of whoever's tripping up the old man and myself.”

Bruce turned to Barry. “Could it be reconfigured to your own energy signatures?”

Barry pushed away from the desk and stood up, walking over to the device and running his hand along the ring. “It's a long shot,” he confessed. “It's one thing to try to hone in one on targeting frequency, but to be able to recreate _ours_ would take an immense amount of electricity, and even then it's not a guarantee.”

“Do it,” Bruce ordered.

Dick, who'd been mostly standing to the side through the conversation (he was a cop and a tech junkie, not a physicist), got to work on helping Bart assemble the generator entirely. Once everything was in place, Barry rerouted the computer to the generator, and gave Bart a thumbs up. They activated both at the same time, gradually funneling more and more power into the generator. With a slow start, the metal ring fixed on top of the generator began to spin, gaining speed as it began to glow with a florescence light.

“It's working,” Barry reported as he read the readings on the screen.

The lights flickered.

The ring spun faster, rattling the base, practically thrumming through the linoleum floor as it picked up speed. The faster it spun, the brighter the light grew. Bolts of electricity sparked from the center of the ring, until the light began to funnel into a swirling vortex of light. Dick tensed, almost able to feel the cool Arctic air of his nightmares blow against his skin. The lights began to dim. Snapping from his daze, Dick ran over to the computer, reading one of the smaller screens. “Bruce, it's draining the power out of the whole building,” he warned.

Bruce said nothing. The generator continued to spin. Ever time Dick thought it couldn't go any faster, or the power get any stronger, it only intense. Papers fluttered off the surrounding desks, a static wind making the hair on everyone's necks stand on end.

“Kid, turn it off!” Barry suddenly shouted over the roar of the machine.

Dick's throat clenched. “What's going on?!”

“Turn it off!” Barry repeated. “It's not just an energy signature – something is trying to break through!”

“Shut it down!” Bruce roared.

Bart obeyed, racing toward the generator – he couldn't get close. The moment he got within three feet, a blast of energy sent him flying back across the room. Dick was quick to race over to the boy, bracing his shoulders as he helped him to his feet. On the other side of the room, Bruce and Barry worked on trying to stop the generator.

“We'll have to cut off its power at the source!” Barry shouted.

There was a pause as Bruce ran to the main Circuit Breaker. Throwing the door to the wall mounted box open, he flicked a series of switches and pulled down on the lever. Whatever light there was left in the overhead bulbs died off. The generator continued. “Flash,” Bruce started, and in a rare instance his tone betrayed his growing apprehension, “it's not connected to the buildings power anymore. It's creating it's own energy.”

A beam of corporeal light burst from the generator. As the ring was left smoking and falling apart, the light that powered it seemed to jump straight out and across the room. “Steady!” Bruce called to the heroes as he slipped into a fighting stance.

Dick did the same. Pulling his escrima sticks off the holsters on his back, he widened his stance and tried to keep track of the moving light. The light seemed to bounce off the walls, the ceiling, racing around them in an endless circuit until finally it dove straight toward Dick –

And stopped.

Green eyes. Inches away from his. Green eyes and freckles were the first things Dick saw, boring into the baby blues beneath his mask. Dick didn't blink. Didn't breathe. Face to face with his fondest memories and most haunting dreams, he felt the world stop, shocked still around them.

Wally blinked first. “Di-”

Dick tazed him. In a moment of blind panic, he struck out with his escrima sticks and tasered him in the side. Wally (fuck, _Wally_ ) grunted, body going rigid until he fell to the ground entirely limp and unconscious. Left standing over his body, Dick truly _saw_ him for the first time. Still clad in his Kid Flash suit, he looked completely unchanged from the man he'd last kissed at the end of the world, floating in an orbiting satellite in space, two years ago. Dick wasn't sure if he knelt down on purpose or it his legs just gave out, but within seconds he was on the ground. Dick leaned over Wally's body, and with trembling fingers searched frantically for a pulse, for breathe, _anything_ –

“Nightwing. Nightwing!” Bruce's commanding voice brought Dick back to the present as strong hands tore him away. Dragged up to his feet, Bruce turned Dick to face him, still holding on tight to his shoulders. “You're compromised,” he said, and Dick was honestly too deep in shock to make much sense of what he was saying. Bruce shook him. “ _Nightwing_. You're compromised. Get out. Now.”

Shaking the cloud of shock from his head, Dick managed a nod, taking one look back to see Barry kneeling at Wally's side, before he sprinted out of the room. Pushing the laboratory doors open, Dick only made it ten steps outside before he was collapsing against the nearest wall. He struggled to catch his breath, back pressed against the drywall as he slide to the ground, knees tight against his chest. He was left trembling in total darkness, illuminated only by the red Exit sign down the hall.

“Nightwing!” Tim's voice was distorted, like he was under water, or shouting down a long tunnel. “Hey! The building lost power, what's going on?! Wha-” Tim's voice cleared as he got closer. Before Dick realized he was approaching, Tim was standing over him, a frown pulling down the top of his domino mask.

Tim knelt down in front of his adopted brother as he laid a hand on his shoulder. “Dick,” he whispered low under his breath. “What's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um.


	3. Unbreak My Heart, New

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are at the end! Hoping I don't disappoint on the Emotional Reunion, front. Enjoy.

 

  


Wally was taken back to Wayne Manor. To be honest, Dick wasn’t really _present_ for most of it. He knew that Bruce and Barry carried Wally to the Batmobile. He remembered the damp scent of concrete, the humidity of the underground garage. Barry and Bart ran back to the manor, and Dick had made for his motorcycle - couldn’t really remember what was said, but he remembered Bruce’s hand on his shoulder, something about him not driving right now. Tim rode his bike. Dick sat in the passenger seat as Bruce drove the Batmobile through the tunnel that let out from underground a block away from the Lab. Dick just sort of moved with it all. Bruce didn’t speak. There wasn’t much he could say. The ride was silent, and Dick found himself glancing in the rear view mirror now and then, watching as passing city lights flowed orange and yellow over the unconscious passenger sprawled across the back seat.

Alfred was already standing in the Cave when they arrived. Barry and Bart had gotten there ahead of them, evidently warning the old Butler of what had happened. Dick slid out of the vehicle, and before he could say a word, Alfred was guiding him up to the Manor. He was oddly adamant about Dick eating. Dick only barely had time to look over his shoulder, watching as Barry leaned into the backseat of the Batmobile. The elevator door closed.

It took another hour for Dick to come back to his senses. It took two bites of a sandwich Alfred made him before he felt ill, a hot shower, and a significant amount of time sitting on his old bed with his head in his hands before he even felt anything. The numbness of shock slowly lifted, but it was a gradual release. Huddled in the warm darkness of his childhood bedroom, lights off and door shut, Dick replayed the scene of chaotic light stilling in front of him over and over, the flash of green eyes and the sudden overwhelming quiet of the lab. No matter how many times he played it over in his memory, it just didn’t feel _real_. It didn’t feel like it had actually happened, save for the numb shivers still spreading through his body.

He’d forgotten how green _his_ eyes were, he realized. He’d spent so long looking at them through pictures that he’d forgotten how vivid they were in person, the deep emerald hue, the subtle ring of hazel brown in the middle of his irises. That moment in the lab had lasted maybe thirty seconds, but the imprint it left behind was deeply scarring.

Dick’s phone buzzed on the bedside table. The intruding noise might as well have been canon fire. Dick jumped, heart skipping before he groaned and scrubbed his hand down his face. Leaning across the bed, Dick grabbed his phone, cringing when the bright light of the screen assaulted his eyes. Turning the brightness down, he blinked a few times to clear his vision before reading his new text.

[Contact: O’Neal]

_Hey Dick, had a great time at breakfast. Wondering if maybe you wanted to do it again this week? TO_

Dick swallowed down a clod of guilt stuck in his throat. He’d gone to coffee with Officer O’Neal, Thomas, just over two weeks ago. It had been nice. Dick had been distracted, but at the time had tried to ignore the strange happenings plaguing his day to day life - told Thomas he was just tired. They’d talked over bacon and pancakes, realized they both loved old school Hitchcock movies, and reminisced about being at the Police Academy. Seemed like an alternate reality at this point. Dick stared at the text for what must have been a solid five minutes before finally replying.

_Hey, that sounds great and all, but I won’t be able to swing it. Bit of a family emergency at the moment. Everything’s fine, just don’t think it’ll work out. Sorry. DG_

Dick stuffed his phone in the front pocket of his hoodie. Couldn’t think about that anymore, his head was too scrambled. Pushing off the bed, Dick finally gravitated downstairs. The Manor was quiet, as it often was, but for the first time since Dick had first come here, the silence was _thick_ , the kind of atmosphere that settled heavily on his chest and shoulders. It wasn’t that he couldn’t breathe with it, but the overbearing stillness made him conscious of every breath he took.

Dick hadn’t been around long enough when they got back to know where they brought _him,_ but he had an inkling. That inkling brought him to the infirmary, a room settled into the lower levels of the Manor’s west wing not quite in the Batcave, but still hidden away from the upper levels. It’d been part of the servants’ quarters a hundred or so years ago until Bruce renovated it. Rounding down a narrow staircase, Dick found himself walking toward Barry on the other side of the corridor. The hero was leaning against the wall in his civilian clothes, one leg bent, foot against the wall, as he huddled over his phone.

“Daddy’s not going to be home in time for your bedtime, okay? I- no, Donny share the phone with your sister. Thank you, buddy. You two be good okay? Now can you give the phone back to Mommy? ...Yeah, no, everything’s fine, Iris. Just caught up with Bruce. I’ll explain later, okay? I promise. Sorry.... okay, okay, I owe you all the foot rubs you want,” he laughed just as his eyes lifted to find Dick approaching from down the hall. “Gotta go. Love you. Bye.” Barry straightened up, lowering his phone from his ear.

“Hey,” Dick said as he stopped in front of Barry, surprised by the coarseness of his own voice. “Any updates?” Barry only shook his head. Dick cleared his throat, pausing for a moment before nodding to Barry’s cell. “Have you told Iris yet? Or the Wests?”

Barry pocketed his phone. “No, not yet,” he admitted. His eyes were heavy, dark circles making his face look gaunt. “Bruce told Barbara, and I heard Alfred on the phone with Jason earlier, but I’m not sure if he told him,” he rubbed his hand over the back of his neck, eyes straying to a door down the hall. “We’ve called in the Martians. Until we know for sure that it’s really _Wally_... I can’t put them through this.” Stepping forward, he looked Dick in the eye and placed a steady hand on his shoulder. “As it is... I’m already sorry you have to go through this.”

Dick nodded. “I’m sorry you do too,” he sighed. “Whatever happens... this isn’t going to be easy.”

Barry nodded, squeezing Dick’s shoulder before letting his hand fall. His eyes flickered to the door again. “But Dick... if this really _is_ him...” Barry trailed off, dropping his head for a moment. “Nevermind. We’ve got him set up in the infirmary. I’m going to go talk to Bruce.” With that Barry passed Dick and headed up the stairs to find his colleague, leaving the younger hero to stare down the hall at the door. It was opened just a crack, enough that a sliver of light fell onto the opposite wall. Willing himself to move, Dick walked toward the infirmary and pushed the door open.

Oddly enough, _he_ wasn’t the first thing Dick saw. Rather, as he walked in, he found Damian sitting in a chair in the corner, arms crossed as he glared at the figure lying in the bed. Dick raised a brow as he walked in. “Damian, what are you doing?” he asked.

The boy turned his glare up at his older “sibling”, only letting it stray for a moment before he directed his attention back at the bed. “Someone has to keep an eye on him. You’re obviously emotionally compromised in the matter, so _you_ can’t be trusted to do it. I’m not letting him out of my sight.”

Dick, honestly, just rolled with it. Easier than arguing at this point. “Suit yourself,” he shrugged.

Pulling up another chair from against the wall, Dick set himself up at the side of the bed and allowed himself to get a good look at Wally. Or in the very least he tried. The problem was that every time he looked at him, every time he even thought his name, a voice in the back of his head screamed itself raw. His conscious threw a chain around his neck and pulled back, never allowing him to finish or form a coherent thought. He couldn’t seem to allow himself to believe that this was _him_.

 _He_ was sleeping - unconscious, more likely. Changed out of the tattered Kid Flash uniform and into a plain grey t-shirt and what looked like sweatpants under the linen sheets, _he_ lay unmoving on the bed. An inhibitor collar had been snapped on around his neck. There was no peace on his features. His eyes were closed, but his face was tense, breath hitching every now and then. That little voice in the back of his head told him this was what _he_ used to look like when he was having a bad dream, and again, Dick felt the chain tighten around his neck, could almost feel the cold friction of metal against his skin.

Dick’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He shifted, pulling his phone out of his pocket.

[Contact: O’Neal]

_No problem, I understand. Hope you’re alright. See you on Monday. TO_

A gasp in front of him had Dick dropping his phone into his lap. Gaze snapping up, he looked just in time to see _him_ shoot up in bed. Dick stood, his phone falling forgotten to the ground as he reached out to steady - fuck it, _Wally. “_ Hey, _hey!_ Hey, you’re alright, calm down,” Dick rushed as he struggled to hold Wally’s shoulders. Wally was in a deep panic, eyes wild, heaving for breath, shaking so hard Dick was concerned he might be convulsing. Dick looked back at Damian over his shoulder. “Damian, go get Bruce and Barry,” he ordered before turning his attentioon back to the panicking man on the bed. When he didn’t hear a response of movement, Dick looked back again. Surely enough, Damian had refused to move from his chair.

Damian met Dick’s disapproval with a snarl. “I’m not movi-”

“ _Damian. Go,”_ Dick snapped, in that low, commanding tone that made him sound too much like Bruce sometimes.

Sending one last glower toward Wally, Damian pushed himself off his chair and stalked out of the room.

With Damian gone, and the comfort that help was coming, Dick finally focused on Wally again. “Come on, you’re okay, calm down,” he repeated, trying to keep the tremor out of his own voice.

Wally’s eyes snapped up to Dick’s, noticing for the first time that he was there. Dick had to remind himself to breathe. It _hurt_. “Dick,” Wally gasped, hands scrambling for purchase on his shoulders, his arms, his sweater, anywhere he could hold on. “ _Dick_ , I’m- oh my God, I’m here, I’m _here_ , I-”

“I know, I know, just-” Dick had to choke through his words. He stopped, momentarily peeling himself away so he could job to the sink on the other side of the room. Filling up glass with cold water, he quickly brought it back to the bed and held it up to Wally’s mouth. “Here- drink thi- easy, there you go.”

Wally complied, though water dribbled down his chin. It gave him the moment he needed to calm down somewhat, focusing on keeping the water down rather than his existential panic. When the drained the glass, Wally pulled away with a gasp, gradually fighting to catch his breath as he hunched over himself. Dick set the glass aside, resisting the overwhelming urge to rub his back and it _hurt_ so God damn much.

“I’m-” Wally panted, one hand fisted in the sheets and the other gripping at the roots of his hair as he struggled to gain his bearings. “I’m... what’s going on?”

Dick let out a slow breath. “I don’t know.”

“I just- I was... I was _somewhere_ , it was too _fast,_ there was too much, too _much_ ,” Wally rambled on, half out of his mind, and Dick was starting to get concerned that he was going to breakdown again. That was when Wally’s hand fell from his hair to his neck, impeded by the inhibitor collar around his neck. All at once, he stopped. Dick wasn’t sure if it was maybe the cold metal grounding him in reality, or the shock of actually wearing the device that snapped Wally out of his spiral, but it happened. Wally’s gaze rose up to Dick’s, burning into him with a thousand questions at once. Dick didn’t have answers to any of them.

Footsteps reverberated from down the hall, Dick looked over his shoulder at the door, torn between his guilt at leaving and his _need_ to get out. “Look, I-I’ll be right back,” was all he could stammer out before walking out of the room. He couldn’t bare to look back to see Wally’s reaction.

When he made it out to the hall, Bruce and Barry were already waiting with J’onn and -- M’gann was throwing herself at Dick before he could properly look at her, arms wrapping around his neck. He didn’t have to have seen her face to know that she had bee crying, he could feel her tears dripping onto his collarbone. Dick stood in the embrace, entirely numb, before finally reacting and allowing his arms to come up around her in return. M’gann gaze him one last squeeze before stepping back, wiping at her face with the edge of her cardigan.

Bruce spoke up, keeping his voice low so the occupant of the infirmary couldn’t hear them. He looked to Dick. “He’s awake?” Dick nodded. Bruce turned to the Martians. “We’ve so far been unable to determine if this is the real Wally West. Our major concern is that this is another case of cloning, or something similar, and that an impostor has been planted in an attempt to undermine us. I ran scans searching for any foreign elements while he was still unconscious and came up with nothing but residual energy from the-” he glanced at Barry, “Speed Force. We need you two to scan his mind and body to the best of your abilities.”

“We will do all that we can,” J’onn nodded.

M’gann was quick to interject. “But he has to consent to it,” she added, thought quietly. Dick’s heart went out to her - it’d been years since she let her telepathy get the better of her good judgment, and she was still shaken up over the consequences.

Bruce considered it for a moment. “If he refuses to cooperate, it’s a good a sign as any that he has something to hide. Go ahead.”

Following the Martians into the room, Dick stuck close to the back wall, giving them, and himself, a bit of space. He watched as Wally’s face momentarily lit up as M’gann walked into the room. The somber atmosphere of the room stifled his excitement. J’onn stepped forward, appraising Wally for a moment before clearing his throat. His mouth seemed to hesitate on his name. “Wallace. I understand that you must be quite disoriented,” he began. “But you must understand as well that with all that we have seen, we cannot be certain that you truly are you who say you are. If you allow me to read your mind, we can confirm your identity.”

Wally’s expression, at first a mixture of confusion and residual panic, began to soften as J’onn explained what was happening. Slowly, understanding seemed to settle over his face. Wally’s eyes drifted to Dick in the corner. His hand came up, fingertips brushing over the cool metal of the inhibitor collar around his neck. Pursing his lips, Wally finally looked back to J’onn and nodded. “Alright.”

With that permission, J’onn reached out and laid his hand on Wally’s head, closing his eyes and taking in a deep breath. What followed was several minutes of tense silence, no one daring to speak or move for fear of breaking the Martian’s concentration. Dick thought he might go insane or throw up if this didn’t end soon - whichever came first. Finally, just when Dick thought he might burst, J’onn retracted his hand. He stood up straighter, turning to face Bruce and Barry. “So far as I can tell,” he said, “there is no deception in him. I cannot find any reason to believe that he is an impostor...” J’onn turned to M’gann, “though I still believe you should look into him.” When M’gann frowned at her Uncle in confusion, he explained himself. “You know his mind far better than I, not only from the countless times your minds have been linked, but by how well you knew him. I can peer into his memories, but you were a part of them, and if there are any discrepancies, you have a far better chance at finding them.”

Though at first hesitant, M’gann nodded. Passing her Uncle, she walked toward Wally’s bed, sending what she hoped was a comforting glance to Dick over her shoulder. Stopping beside Wally, she exhaled slowly. “Is this alright with you?”

“My brain’s all yours,” Wally attempted a smile, lips cracking in a false front. He sighed. “Sorry, just a little... shaken up.”

M’gann let out one breath of a laugh, shaking her head before straightening her back. She schooled her expression, seeming to need to remind herself of the uncertainty of this situation. Reaching out, she cupped Wally’s cheek, more familiar than J’onn, and closed her eyes.

  
Then began the waiting again. Dick, for whatever reason, found himself more anxious for these results than he had with J’onn’s trial. He’d heard the words the older Martian said and understood them, knowing in his mind that the chances of J’onn being _wrong_ about Wally were slim. Still, his heart stood in the way, unable to allow him to get his hopes up.

After several minutes of Dick watching, virtually unblinking at the scene before him, one single sound broke the silence. One hitch of breath. It took a moment for Dick to realize that there were tears streaming down M’gann’s cheeks. She hadn’t even opened her eyes yet, and tears dripped down from her eyelashes onto her emerald skin.

When M’gann opened her eyes, they were glowing. Irises flushed out under the viridescent light, Dick knew this transformation well. M’gann’s hand retracted from Wally’s face, and suddenly struck out in front of her, palm open and outstretched. In that single picosend, Dick thought she was going to attack. He thought she’d realized he was an impostor, and was going to attack, and he _still_ pushed off the wall in preperation to get between them. The instinct to protect overcame _everything_ in that tense moment.

The inhibitor collar snapped off. The device fell from around Wally’s neck and harmlessly onto the mattress. The glow faded from M’gann’s eyes, replaced by heartfelt brown orbs. All at once she threw herself against him, arms tight around Wally’s shoulders as she buried her face in his neck and let out a sob.

Wally, momentarily shocked by the outburst, slowly returned the embrace. By the time M’gann let go, Dick was gone.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.  


Wayne Manor was enormous. A castle in it own right, Dick had memorized the lay out of every wing, every corridor and secret passage years ago. He knew it all. He knew of the ballroom, the green houses, the foyer, every cavernous and open aired room in the mansion - and still, he always gravitated to the roof. No amount of space could give him the same freedom if there were four walls surrounding him. Dick needed height, he needed free flowing air, and after what he saw in the infirmary, he needed distance.

To be honest, he barely remembered climbing up here, like his heart’s roaring had drowned out all sensation until it had been given space to calm down. Sitting on the edge of the flat part of the roof over the eastern wing, Dick stared down at his shoes dangling over the six story drop. From there, he could see the apex of a lower roof, the slope where he’d sat the night he got the package from Mrs. West. He could see the vines Wally had tried to climb up to get to his bedroom window. He could see the tree he used to climb when he was a sit and this place was unfamiliar and haunting. Dick could see how his whole life, he’d gravitated toward heights.

Alternatively, Dick could also hear better up there. Just like he could heard the attempted silent footfall coming from behind him. “Jay,” Dick sighed. “You’re not fooling anyone.”

The foot steps that had been previously quiet, almost nonexistent to the untrained ear, all at once gave up on stealth. Jason stopped beside Dick, lowering himself down with a grunt. “Asshole,” he huffed. “How do you always know?”

“I’m not Bruce,” Dick chuckled under his breath, the sound hollow. “Not overconfident. And you _still_ put too much weight on the balls of your feet.” Dick leaned back, bracing his arms out behind him. “Alfred called you?”

“Yeah,” Jason nodded. “Old man thought that for some _insane_ reason, I might be able to help.”

Dick and Jason were still at odds. That much hadn’t been forgotten despite the familiarity with which they spoke to each other. Dick didn’t approve of Jason’s activities as the Red Hood, didn’t agree with his ethics. Jason didn’t give a damn what Dick approved of - but it was evident that, contrary to their strained relationship, Jason in some way still cared about what Dick thought of him, and Dick still felt responsible for him. So, they’d reached a sort of stalemate, one that just wasn’t possible to achieve with a man like Bruce Wayne. Dick and Jason were at odds, but they’d still considered themselves brothers once. In some ways, they still did.

Dick sighed slowly, closing his eyes against a crisp breeze for a moment. “The dead don’t just come back, Jason,” he said, opening his eyes with a knowing look at the other man.

Jason shrugged. “You know, I want to argue with that, but I really can’t.”

Dick, of all things, found himself laughing at that. It was hushed, smothered by his own internal crisis, but it was there. Sitting upright again, Dick passed his hand back through his hair, deflecting Jason’s off handed comment about how he really needed a hair cut. He mulled over his thoughts before speaking. “I don’t know, I just- I feel fucked up, Jay,” he said. “I mean- I should be over the moon with joy. It’s- It’s _Wally_ , he’s back, it’s all I ever could have dreamed off and never allowed myself to.” Hell, Dick still remembered when Jason came back, during one of the rare times the two of them got the chance to actually talk. Jason had asked in earnest how Dick had been doing during his absence, how Wally was, and Dick had had to tell him that Wally had been dead for a year. They didn’t bring it up again. Dick sighed. “Just don’t know how to feel, I guess.”

Jason didn’t say anything for a long while. He fiddled with a lighter in his hands, and Dick could tell that he was aching for a cigarette. When Jason spoke, he was confident in what he was saying. “The old man might have been on to something when he called me,” Jason admitted, and when Dick opened his mouth to respond, he waved him off. “And _listen_ , Dick. Without talking? For once in your Goddamn life?” Dick promptly shut his mouth. Jason continued slowly. “Y’know, when I came back... I was pretty fucked up myself. I don’t know what “death” felt like for Wally, but I know what it feels like being thrust back into the living world without a fucking clue. You still _remember_ dying, you know what it feels like, and when you come back everything is different. All I’m saying is Wally is probably just as fucked up as you are right now. Seems like a pretty fair place to start.”

Dick listened, letting the words sink in like teeth in his chest. They tore him open and left him bare, let air into his suffocating heart. He breathed slowly. “Thanks, Jay,” he said. With a grunt, he pushed himself to his feet, walking back from the edge of the roof. He took one step toward the far rooftop access door before looking back at Jason. “Any chance you’re going to stick around for a while?”

Jason only laughed. “Not in a million years. I’m still holding a grudge against you and Wally for letting me win Mario Party.” Turning his back on his brother, he lit up a cigarette, the slight amber glow lining his silhouette as he walked off. Probably parked his motorcycle off the veranda. Honestly, Dick knew he wouldn’t stay. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t have anything to do with Wally or Mario Party. Things between him and Bruce were still too complicated. But, like Jason had said, Alfred knew what he was doing, calling him there.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

When Wally woke up, that kid was sitting in the corner of the room again. He blinked, bleary eyed until his vision cleared, and he found himself making eye contact with a boy making no effort to stifle the hellfire in his eyes. When Wally had fallen asleep, it’d been after M’gann and J’onn left, after talking to Barry for a while about... his situation. He didn’t recall this little gremlin coming back. He did remember Dick saying his name when he’d first come to, but understandably, he couldn’t remember what it was. Or who he was for that matter. Honestly, it was starting to unnerve him a bit.

“Uh...,” Wally cleared his throat. “Can I help you?”

The kid said nothing.

Wally shifted up, leaning back against his pillows and the headboard. “Heeeeello?”

Again, nothing.

“Seriously, kid, do you even blink?”

Finally, the boy pushed himself off his chair and stalked toward Wally in all of his four foot two terror. The kid reached up, grabbing a fistful of Wally’s shirt before yanking him down to his level. Wally complied, if only out of total confusion. “Listen well,” the kid snarled. “I don’t _care_ if you’re the real West. I do not trust you. And I’m going to be keeping my eye on you _very_ closely.”

Wally stared down at the boy for two beats before snorting in a poor attempt at holding back laughter. He couldn’t be serious, could he? Evidently, he could, if the boy’s reaction was anything to go by. It would seem he wasn’t used to people laughing at him. The kid growled, completely feral, hand tightening at his side in poise to strike, before a presence in the doorway stopped him short.

Dick leaned against the threshold, arms crossed over his chest. “Damian,” he said. “I think Bruce wanted to see you. He’s probably got something better for you to be doing?”

The kid, Damian apparently, glared back at Dick before roughly shoving himself away from his would-be victim. Wally straightened out the front of his shirt as he sat upright, falling somewhat heavily back against the propped up pillows. His muscles ached and sighed in protest. Thankfully though, the kid listened, stalking out of the room and leaving him and Dick in privacy. Wally gazed at the man standing across the room, a familiar stranger in the most disorienting way.

Dick didn’t seem too much taller, but that much was difficult to tell. He was definitely more filled out, his lanky height replaced with a more sturdy build. His hair was longer, jaw sharper, but although his eyes held an unfamiliar weight, they at least were the same earnest blue. It was by no means a drastic change from the last time Wally could recall seeing him, but Wally- well, he liked to think he used to know Dick. He could mark the slight differences.

Wally licked his lips. The distance between them felt unencroachable. “So...,” he began. “Who’s the kid?”

Dick pushed off the threshold, standing up straight as he walked carefully into the room. It looked more like he was navigating a minefield. “Damian,” he replied. “He’s, uh... Bruce’s son.”

Wally quirked a brow. “Picked up another Robin?”

“Yes and no,” Dick replied slowly. “Damian is the new Robin. He’s not part of the team yet, and Tim goes by Red Robin now, but Damian’s not adopted. He’s Bruce’s _biological_ son.” When Wally only gaped at him, Dick shrugged. “We didn’t know about him until last year.” Finally making it to the edge of Wally’s bed, Dick seemed to debate between a chair and the mattress before finally settling, although timidly, on the bed beside Wally. “How are you feeling?”

Wally sighed, feeling the air between him crinkle with unspoken electricity. “Dandy,” he replied, pretending it wasn’t there. “Just dandy.” Silence, again. Despite their physical proximity, the emotional distance between them was still a canyon. “Barry, uh... he filled me in. Right before showing me about twenty pictures of the twins,” he added with a dry laugh. He swallowed. “Two years, huh?”

Dick nodded. “Yeah...”

Wally could hear in the way Dick’s voice cracked so quietly that it still hard to admit. Hell, Wally was still having trouble wrapping his mind around missing out on two whole years. He felt like they’d been snatched like a rug from under his feet, time he could never get back. It wasn’t sinking in easily. If anything made it hit him, however, it was Dick. Wally took in a deep breath, trying to steady himself. “Dick...” he began. “I don’t... even know where to begin, I’m so-”

Dick waved his hand between them. “Wally. Don’t,” he said. Wally obeyed, letting his apology fall silent from his lips. Dick sighed, rubbing his palm over his face. “I’m gonna be honest here. This is going to take some time.”

“I understand,” Wally nodded.

Unwilling to let silence suffocate them again, Dick settled a little easier onto the edge of the mattress. “What else did Barry tell you?”

“Not much,” Wally replied. “He says we should probably wait a few days to tell anyone else, let things settle down a bit, y’know? Then we’ll tell my parents...” Wally let his head tilt back to stare up at the ceiling. “Honestly, I don’t mind. Not too sure about facing my Dad after all this time...”

Dick laughed. Of all responses he could have possibly imagined to that admission, Wally did _not_ expect Dick to laugh. The sound was subdued, caught low in his throat, but it was genuine. Wally let his head drop to look at Dick, just to make sure he hadn’t gone crazy.

“What’s so funny?” he asked.

Dick shook his head. “Nothing, it’s just,” he chuckled again. “I... actually had lunch with your Dad about two months ago in Keystone.”

Wally debated for a moment whether or not he’d fallen out in the right reality. “You... what, seriously? With my Dad. Was Mom there?”

“She was supposed to meet us, but she got caught up at work, so it was just me and him. It was nice.”

Wally, in that moment, found it more difficult to fathom this information than he did with being catapulted through a parallel dimension and landing two years in the future. Rudolph West and Dick Grayson were oil and fire.

Dick caught on easily to Wally’s shock. “You should talk to him,” he said. “You... might be surprised.”

Wally let out a short breath, and shook his head. “It’s a whole new world, huh?”

Dick let the corner of his mouth turn up in a smirk. “You have no idea.”

So, Dick caught him up. As much as he didn’t want to dump everything on the obviously overwhelmed man all at once, Wally seemed to crave information. Dick told him about finding out about Damian, how his mother was Talia Al Ghul’s and what a mess that was. He told him about the team, how Bart had become Kid Flash and was doing amazing in his role. He told him about their friends, filling him in on their lives. He told him about Jason, a conversation that trailed off on the subject of the dead coming back. It quickly turned to Dick joining the Police Academy and becoming a cop in Bludhaven. Dick just talked to him. For a while, they let go of their baggage, and just _talked,_ and it was _easy._ Wally could feel the walls Dick had built up around him, glass and transparent, but still there. So, whatever Dick shared, Wally listened intently.

Still, as out of place and physically battered as he felt, he was still Wally. And, naturally, his attention drifted. The amber light of the lamp beside his bed flickered off of something handing around Dick’s neck. Caught by the spark of light, Wally looked down, noticing for the first time a thin gold chain hanging from Dick’s neck, and the thing gold band the chain was thread through. It took Wally a moment to recognize it. Staring at the ring, he didn’t notice that Dick had trailed off until his hand came up to gently fold around the ring. Wally’s gaze snapped up to Dick, who was watching him with heavy eyes.

“Dick, I...” Wally breathed. “ _God,_ I’m so sorry. Finding that must have been...”

Dick dropped his head with a gradual out-breath. Wally couldn’t see his face, but he could see the rise and fall of his shoulders, the slight uneven hitch. The thing was, Wally had bought the ring before the Reach Invasion. He’d known that he wanted to propose when he stood in the Watchtower and decided to go to the Arctic. He’d just told Artemis about it not even an hour before, it had been so _fresh_ in his mind. Wally remembered listening to the broadcast about the final chrysalis, hearing that Barry and Bart needed his help. He remembered looking at Dick, standing at his side, and _knowing_ that he needed to go.

He had kissed Dick knowing that he might not come back.

Dick lifted his head. Opening his eyes, he looked at Wally with a clear gaze. The corner of his mouth quirked up again. “Raisin Bran? Really?”

Wally’s single laugh was staccato, punched out of his chest. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

He didn’t ask what Dick’s answer would have been.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.  


When Dick got back from work, Wally wasn’t in the infirmary. It’d been a day of desk duty, catching up on paper work and doing a bit of lead tracking on a case he was shadowing. A week ago, Dick might have dreaded being stuck inside the office when he craved working out on the streets, but - it was needed. Dick wouldn’t have done well out on the field anyway. Too much going on in his head. The past few days had taken a heavy emotional tole on him, left him distracted and fatigued in ways he couldn’t seem to shake. Besides, it was a miserable day out, drizzling with thick, low hanging rain clouds. So, Dick stuck to his desk and (mostly) didn’t complain about it.

He didn’t see O’Neal that morning after all, which to be honest, had Dick relieved. He was a nice enough guy and all but - things were messy. It wasn’t going to go anywhere. Dick didn’t know where he and Wally stood at the moment, but... it was messy. Burying himself in paperwork all day, Dick managed to keep from going stir crazy until it was time to clock out. He stopped at his apartment first, changing out of his uniform, before hopping on his motorcycle and riding out toward the Manor.

And when Dick got to the Manor, back from work, Wally wasn’t in the infirmary. It didn’t set off any internal panic alarms. After all, Wally had been up and walking around that morning before Dick left. They didn’t really know what to do, beyond the reveal that he was alive, they didn’t have a plan- where he was going to live, what he was going to do, nothing. So, for the time being, he was staying at Wayne Manor. There was an unspoken understanding that so long as Wally was staying there, Dick was as well.

Heading back up to the main level of the Manor, Dick wandered the halls for a few minutes in search of the missing ginger. His first instinct to check the kitchen had come up with nothing. Only thinking to ask as he passed, Dick knocked on the door of Bruce’s office and pushed it open, leaning against the frame. “Hey Bruce, have you seen-”

“Roof,” Bruce answered without looking up from his work.

Dick made a face, pushing off the door frame. He rounded the desk, looking at Bruce’s computer screen from over his shoulder. Sure enough, several feeds from the security cameras were playing, with one window in the bottom right corner showing Wally on the Manor roof. Dick wasn’t sure if it was because Bruce still didn’t completely trust him, or if he was just keeping a concerned eye on him, but Dick didn’t ask. He chuckled under his breath, hand braced on the back of Bruce’s chair as he straightened up. “Thanks,” he said as he headed toward the door.

Dick stopped before he made it there. Standing in the middle of the familiar old study, Dick turned back to his adopted father. “You knew it was Wally, didn’t you?”

Bruce, again, didn’t look up. “You say that like you believe I’m some all knowing benevolent being,” he said. When Dick didn’t respond, Bruce finally glanced up to find the young man staring at him with one quirked brow. Bruce, despite himself, smirked. Dropping his pen, he leaned back in his chair. “I only had a theory,” he admitted. “I knew about the power surges, and I knew that they had started at the same time as the Flashes’ interference. You should give yourself more credit, you were onto it before I was. It was only after you confessed what was happening that Tim showed me the footage you’d been working on at the Watchtower. That’s all,” Bruce paused a moment, appraising his eldest ward before leaning forward across the desk. “I didn’t want to say anything until I was certain. I couldn’t do that to you.”

Dick nodded. “Thank you, Bruce.”

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

Always the roof. Dick tried to shake off the irony of heights and gravity being such strong themes in his life.

When he pushed through the rooftop access door, taking the final few steps out onto the roof, Dick didn’t see Wally at first. Letting the door close behind him, Dick walked out, hit by the cold humidity of the air. He could still smell the scent of leftover rain, pin pricked against his skin. As Dick turned, looking around the slope of the door he found Wally standing on the far end of the roof, in the middle of the turf, just... standing there. Head tilted back and arms relaxed at his sides, Wally just stood there and existed.

Dick shivered as a brisk wind cut through his light button down. Crossing his arms over his chest to reserve some warmth, he walked toward the other man. “Hey,” he called out, quiet despite the endless space surrounding them.

Wally didn’t seem to notice that Dick was there until he spoke. Looking somewhat startled out of his thoughts, Wally opened his eyes to glance back at him. “Oh, uh- hey,” he greeted.

[Dick ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POB1uUfOWAg)was slow to close the distance between them. “What’re you doing up here?”

Wally shook his head. “Nothing, nothing...” he trailed off, obviously uncertain of is own words.

Dick frowned. “Are you okay?”

Wally sighed. “Yeah, it just...” he let his head tilt back again, eyes closed as he opened himself up to the totality of the stars peppering the night sky above them. “Just feels weird,” he finished in a murmur.

Dick came to a slow stop beside Wally. “What does?”

“Feeling.” Wally peaked one eye open to smirk at Dick, but the expression fell short. For a long time after, Wally didn’t say anything, and Dick didn’t intrude on his silence. They just stood side by side, coexisting, quiet as Wally soaked in the star light. “I’ve been,” he broke the silence, his voice likewise breaking, “been, uh... regaining some of my memory from my time in the Speed Force.”

Dick’s chest constricted. “You were conscious?”

“Vaguely,” Wally replied. “I was... conscious that the world was turning around me. There was nothing that I saw, or felt, or heard, it was just sensationless, but I _knew_ things. I... can’t really put it into words. It was so _lonely,_ ” his voice trembled. “But now... now I can feel _everything_. I can feel the Earth spinning, I can feel the Sun traveling through space, I can feel the orbit of the Moon and the planets, all at once and-”

Dick took Wally’s hand. It was purely on reflex, but hearing Wally describe the torment he was going through struck him hard. Their hands were laced so effortlessly together before Dick even realized he’d moved.

Wally looked down at their hands. “To be honest, I really just want to forget it all.”

Dick nodded. “I know, and... as much as it should go without saying, you won’t be alone in this. You don’t have to carry this burden on your own.”

Wally didn’t say anything at first. Still staring down at their hands, he finally squeezed and took in a full breath. “I appreciate this Dick, but... I don’t want you to have to feel obligated to go back to the way things were before.”

“I don’t think things can _ever_ go back,” Dick admitted, and for a moment, he could see the pain in Wally’s eyes. Dick stepped in front of Wally, turning his body so they were face to face, without letting go of his hand. Jaw tight, Dick thought through his words carefully before speaking. He took in a harsh breath through his nose before letting it out slowly. “Wally... I’m not sure you completely understand how much losing you has _changed_ me... I’m not the same person you knew before. And neither are you. We’ve both changed. So no, we can’t go back to the way things were, and I don’t think we ever will,” Dick swallowed down his emotions. “But...”

Wally waited for him to finish. He never did. “But what?”

Dick cursed under his breath, gritting his teeth as he fought the uphill battle of keeping himself in check. “Wally, you were _dead_. When I thought of you, it was in _past tense_. I was trying so hard to move on, but I’ve spent every waking moment for the last two years feeling like something had been torn straight out of my fucking _chest_ and left the nerve endings open and raw. It hurt _every day_. I just learned to live with it,” he choked. “I _missed_ you. But I am _so fucking scared of missing you again_."

Wally listened intently, patiently, and Dick could almost see his heart breaking for him in his gaze. Reaching up, Wally hesitantly ghosted his fingertips over Dick’s cheek, wanting so badly to settle but unwilling to scare Dick off. Wally pushed the dark hair out of Dick’s face, let his thumb catch the tears poised to fall, but didn’t let himself _hold_ him. Wally licked his lips and spoke slowly. “You have to ask yourself if the fear is worth it.

Oh. Put like that, it all became so simple. All at once, the stars went quiet above them. Held their breath. The complicated mess of Dick’s mind, the chaotic internal battle, all of it narrowed down to one simple point. Dick’s breath clouded in the chilled air. “The fear _means_ that it’s worth it.”

Wally’s palm settled on Dick’s cheek. Leaning in, he brushed his lips against Dick’s, light as a breeze. Dick shuddered, tilted his head up a fraction, just enough for their mouths to graze again. And again. And again, until Dick’s arms slid up around Wally’s shoulders and Wally’s circled Dick’s waist. When they pulled away, it was with soft gazes, foreheads pressed gently together as they locked eyes. Like a glass wall shattering between them, their lips met like stars colliding, a supernova smoldering in their chests. Dick held onto Wally like he'd slip through his fingers at any moment. He kissed Wally like he'd imagined doing again for years in dreams that left him aching. Gravity couldn't pull them apart for how desperately they clung to one another.

Finally. Fucking _finally_ , Dick broke down. His shoulders trembled as he pulled back to bury his face in Wally's neck. He cried like he hadn't done since he'd fallen apart in the middle of the Arctic, since he'd lost everything. _His_ everything. Dropping down to his knees, Dick sobbed against Wally’s chest as he rubbed his back to comfort him. Wally was back. Wally was _alive._

For the first time in two years, Dick was alive, too.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ow. Ow, fuck, I played myself. Now I'm crying. Fuck, goddamn. 
> 
> Anyways, if you're curious, the song that inspired this fic is Mercury by, you guessed it, Sleeping At Last. The lyrics are where I got the titles of each chapter. The song I used for the finally is Uranus.
> 
> Also! Just to clear up any confusion, I've changed my screen name! I used to be LittlestTrainWreck, but I've had that name since I was in high school and I've sort of out grown it. So now, you can find me pretty much anywhere as Novaviis! Follow me on tumblr and twitter for my existential void screaming. 
> 
> As always, your comments mean the world to me. Until next time.


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